


friendlies and diner fries

by Randomest_Username



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Awkward Conversations, Bruce Banner Is Not A Medical Professional, Canon Disabled Character, Deaf Clint Barton, Diners, Gen, Hydra (Marvel), I'm not sure if that describes it, Post-Avengers (2012), Swearing, University Student Annabeth Chase, but only on one side, i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26556679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randomest_Username/pseuds/Randomest_Username
Summary: ‘Some time.’In Tony-speak, ‘some time’ has absolutely no meaning whatsoever.  It just doesn’t.‘Some time,’ this time, turns out to be two more days.Two days until their mystery woman is identified.“Mystery girl,” Tony corrects hesitantly as the profile pops up in front of them. Steve wants to slam his head into the table at the look on Clint’s face. “Annabeth Chase,” Tony reads. “Eighteen.” Someone has very clearly kicked Clint’s puppy.In which a Hydra base is taken down and Steve tries not to lose his sanity in the week that follows.[formerly titled: friendlies and diner fries || one week, seven days]
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 182





	friendlies and diner fries

**Author's Note:**

> So a good work title continues to evade me!
> 
> Anyway! I hope all's well and life is good! This has been written for a while now, and I decided to polish it up a bit and release it into its natural habitat in a (not so) orderly fashion.
> 
> While my thought deficit continues, I am once again asking y'all to share yours with me - I love hearing them! More (than necessary) in the end notes so I'll digress for now. Hope you enjoy!!

“Keep the friendlies in the warehouse,” Steve says into his comm, knocking one of the hostiles back with his shield and sending him crashing into the wall. Sam acknowledges him from inside the warehouse. Faintly, from his spot on the roof, Steve can hear the shuffling as Sam seems to convey the message to the civilians.

Their raid of this Hydra base was supposed to be a simple engagement and dismantle - they hadn’t received word of any hostages. But his team is good at adapting to new situations - they’re great at their job in general.

A good portion of the fighting has spilled out of the warehouse now, into the alley that meets the back exit, Natasha waiting for them. Most of the hostiles, however, had spilled out through the front entrance, where they’re being taken care of by Iron Man and Thor, the latter of which had unceremoniously - as unceremonious as the god of thunder can be, really - appeared during the raid.

The rest seem to have decided to take a more direct approach, coming up to Steve’s rooftop and vying for a confrontation. He give one to them.

 _“Nat?”_ Clint asks, the release of his arrows remaining constant in Steve’s ears despite the slight worried edge in his voice. The only response they get is a grunt. Bad news.

Another thump of a body hits the ground in the alley below him and another quarter-minute passes before the sound of bullets - Natasha’s gun, by the position - rejoins their battle.

 _“Looks like we’ve got a new friend,”_ Clint comments.

The onslaught of hostiles slows for a moment, allowing Steve to spare a glance to the rooftop beside his, which is acting as the archer’s perch. His glance should serve to assure him that Clint’s position is safe before he turns back to-

 _“Fuck,”_ Clint swears, as a man dressed in Hydra get-up slams into his side, pushing his arm back. His arrow releases, no doubt not on target anymore. Clint drops his bow too, though it looks like he does it on purpose, freeing his hands to flip the hostile and land a kick on his chest as he hits the ground.

Clint’s head rockets back to look out onto the alley acting as his shooting range. Steve aims to follow but has his line of sight cut off by three approaching hostiles. The battle is drawing to a close, Steve can tell, as he knocks the last of the men on the roof unconscious.

 _“Me and Point Break are clear over here,”_ Tony’s voice comes through his comm.

 _“Clear,”_ Natasha says. Steve takes a look around for certainty.

“Clear,” he echoes.

 _“Still clear in here,”_ Sam says. Steve realizes that a voice is missing from their check-in.

“Clint?”

 _“Clear,”_ comes the archer’s voice, but it sounds tight - almost like a hiss. Steve’s missed something here, hasn’t he?

  
  
  


They elect not to change before the debrief, only bothering to remove excess weapons and restricting clothing - which is against their admittedly-loose protocol - a fact that he doesn’t bring up. The team has spread out in what they had long ago unceremoniously labeled the debrief room.

Clint sits in a chair identical to the other half dozen in the room, against the wall, his elbows on his thighs and his head in his hands. His posture is rigid but considerably calmer than earlier, when he had kicked a select number of brick walls in the alley.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Natasha states, not an inch of argument in her tone. Clint lets out a low but aggressive huff. Steve sends a questioning look in Natasha’s direction, which she seems to defer in her gesture to Tony. He must know what it means because he calls on JARVIS to ‘play the clip.’ Steve wonders how he’s still not in the know. That’s what debriefs are for, he guesses.

Steve isn’t sure what camera the clip has come from, but it captures nearly the entirety of the alley, starting in the middle of Natasha’s interaction with the nearly two dozen hostiles that had poured out of the warehouse and into her welcoming arms. Tony seems to have layered their comm recordings over top of the recording for clarity. It also serves to make the audio-less video less static-y in a way. They all pay attention, and Clint isn’t an exception.

On screen, Natasha slams a hostile into the wall by his shoulders, pushing off and using her legs to slam another behind her into the opposite alley wall. Somewhere between the next three hostiles, Steve sees Natasha’s last gun clatter to the ground. She ducks under the next punch, knocking out two more hostiles before moving to retrieve it. But more hostiles appear between her and her weapon.

Steve’s brain fills in the fact that her batons and bites are both getting repaired two floors down in Tony’s labs at the moment, in an attempt to combine the two.

 _“Nat?”_ Clint’s recorded voice asks, laced with a fraction of concern. She grunts in response as she ducks under a kick and swipes the hostile’s stationary foot out from under him. Steve’s eyes double-take as his gaze lands on the opposite edge of the video’s range, where a new figure has come into view, not dressed in uniform - Hydra or otherwise.

The blonde head visible in the mediocre lighting moves farther into the alley, heading straight, it seems, for the gun on the ground, and grasping it with one hand as the hostiles finally take notice. Two of them whip around as Steve sees on-screen Natasha’s eyes land on the figure. They move closer. The figure slides the gun across the alley-floor until it’s stopped by Natasha, who makes use of the weapon immediately. That is, until the chamber clicks. Empty.

The blonde - a woman, Steve thinks, based on the rough silhouette of her long ponytail - kicks one of the hostiles, sending him into the alley wall, her back still to the camera.

 _“Looks like we’ve got a new friend,”_ Clint’s voice says, a lighthearted humour behind it, the archer clearly in a good mood because of their new ally. Steve furrows his eyebrows slightly. He doesn’t remember seeing this woman.

He finally sees her face as she turns, front facing the camera, to meet a hostile approaching from off-screen, from where Steve knows the alley opening sits. It’s as the hostile gets ready to charge that Steve’s mind begins to remember the order of events from earlier.

 _“Fuck!”_ Clint’s face hardens beside him as he watches the screen. The recorded exclamation coincides with yet another arrow coming into the camera’s view. The woman turns harshly, Steve finally realizing that she’s completely in the arrow’s path. Beside him, Sam’s face scrunches up in sympathy.

Steve thinks she manages to dodge it, not realizing until she doesn’t move away when the hostile finally charges. She’s pinned to the wall, the arrow having passed partially through her upper-arm and embedded itself into the brick wall of the alley behind her.

She’s pinned at an awkward angle too, nearly at a forty-five degree angle relative to the wall as a result of her turn. Despite this, she manages to kick the hostile in the groin as he charges, before she kicks him again, nearly at chin level this time. As he collapses in front of her, she makes a pained face and kicks the wall she’s pinned to with the flat of her shoe in obvious irritation, pushing her head against the wall like she’s looking at the sky. Clint clenches his teeth hard. 

She glances around, once in each direction, stopping as she gets a view of the fighting to her right. Steve follows her gaze unconsciously. One of the hostiles has separated himself from the pack attacking Natasha. And he has his gun drawn towards his teammate.

Steve stills at the woman’s next move. With her uninjured arm, she reaches up and grabs what must be a spot of brick jutting out from the rest of the wall above her. She raises herself barely an inch before she strikes out with both legs like a rocket, her feet crashing into the hostile’s side and sending him crashing to the ground, a muzzle-flash the only indication of his stray bullet with the video’s lack of sound. She seems to steady herself with her free arm as she regains her footing. 

She wastes no time in looking around briefly again, before she reaches down to the collapsed hostile in front of her. Her expression compresses into itself as she rummages in the man’s vest. Her hand finally comes back into sight with something in it - a knife if the glint that Steve catches is anything to go by. Again, wasting no time, she brings her free hand around and to where the arrow is embedded in the wall still. She slams the knife into the brick, shifting slightly before she does it again. The brick holding the arrow dislodges and she moves away from the wall.

She tucks the knife into the waistband of her jeans and places her hand on her shoulder, holding the wound with the arrow sticking out between her fingers. She spares a glance in Natasha’s direction before she moves in the opposite way, clearing out of both the camera’s view and the alley. Steve’s attention shifts to Clint as the rest of the footage plays out.

His expression is sour. He rubs a hand down his face. Natasha’s face seems to harden as well. “It wasn’t your fault,” she repeats. Clint shakes his head.

“I could’ve killed her,” he says, indignation in his voice. “She saved your life and I nearly killed her.”

“She’s-” Steve starts.

“Did you _see_ the video?” Clint demands. “If she hadn’t moved-”

“She did move,” Natasha reminds him evenly.

 _“-my_ arrow would’ve gone straight through her heart!” He dampens a little. “No question about it.”

“She’s fine,” Tony insists.

“She has an _arrow_ in her arm.”

“I’ll find her,” Tony says. “JARVIS, find her.” He turns to face Clint fully. “I’ll find her. She’ll get treated. She’ll be fine.”

“Let’s debrief tomorrow,” Steve says after a beat, disregarding the fact that Thor is leaving tonight. There’s another beat before they start to stand and prepare to leave the room.

“I’ll find her before the night is over,” Tony assures Clint quietly as he heads towards the exit. It’s a confident statement seeing as midnight is barely 20 minutes away. Clint seems to deflate slightly as he purses his lips, one hand moving up to his neck.

“Yeah.”

Natasha and Clint file into the elevator and the rest of them don’t follow immediately, seemingly collectively deciding that they should use the next one. Just before the elevator door starts to close, Clint reaches his hand up further, taking off one of his hearing aids while his left hand reaches up, doing the same for the other.

He drops them into his inside chest pocket and leans back against the elevator wall. He’s trying to avoid the conversation.

Natasha moves her hands out in front of her - not signing yet but just about to - and doesn’t let him.

  
  
  


The footage, Tony concludes nearly an hour and a half later, is too blurry. 

It’s painful just watching as JARVIS struggles to find a match through facial recognition. He leans back in his chair for a second, letting it pop back into place as he releases the tension.

“Give up on the facial recognition, J,” he says. “Change parameters. Focus on clothing and build; extend the range by a dozen blocks in every direction.” Even with a below average quality camera, he can usually get a match relatively quickly. But this camera is the shit that lies underneath several feet of shit in the back stall of a highly frequented stable.

 _“Captain Rogers is requesting entrance.”_ Tony sighs at the progress bar tucked in the very corner of his screen.

“Let ‘im in.” He spins his chair around towards the door as it opens. “Before you ask,” he says. “I haven’t found her.” Steve nods.

“Did you check hospitals?” he asks after a beat.

“Yeah, I did,” Tony says, not in possession of enough energy to make a comment about who Steve thinks he is. “J, check again - you know what, better yet: just keep checking until we find her, run it on loop.” He sighs.

“Maybe you should get some rest, Tony,” Steve says. “Let JARVIS look for the mystery woman. Have you even taken a shower since we got back?” Tony gives him a side eye.

“That’s your very discreet way of telling me I stink, isn’t it?”

Steve smiles as he turns to leave. “Why, Tony. You honestly think me capable of such a thing?”

  
  
  


At eight a.m., JARVIS’ voice wakes Tony. Unfortunately, it also ends up waking Pepper - the incredibly light sleeper that she is - who just returned on a 14 hour flight from Yokohama. A string of whispered apologies accompany Tony from the bed to the door as he exits, already trying to figure out how to get Pepper to forgive him when she wakes up.

But he can’t really be mad at J, especially since his AI was following Tony’s specific instructions to wake him if he found anything.

He makes his way into the common floor, the lights at full blast because he once made the unfortunate decision to let a group of heathens live in his tower rent free. Steve doesn’t even have the decency to look like shit as he eats his breakfast at the table.

Bruce at least gets a pass because he goes to bed at ten every night, you know, like an eight grader - but Steve fell asleep yesterday at basically the same time that Tony did. Stupid supersoldier serum.

He collapses onto the sofa with dignity, swiping at his tablet to get to the reason he’s here. He groans dramatically.

Steve glances at him with a look that says _go ahead, be dramatic, tell us all what’s wrong with the world._ He accepts the invitation.

“Guess what?” They don’t guess. Steve gives him half of an unimpressed look. “JARVIS caught sight of the mystery woman.” He flicks upwards, displaying the footage holographically above the tablet. A security camera’s view from after midnight of a walkway separated by a fence from the bay shows what JARVIS has finally identified as the mystery woman. She walks along a stretch of the walkway, tossing something into the water as she passes. The footage stops.

He sees the expectant look on Steve’s face. “That’s it,” Tony confirms, likewise unimpressed. “She just keeps walking until the cameras eventually lose her.” Steve purses his lips.

“What’d she toss in?” he asks. Tony zooms in and tries his best to make the footage clearer. He furrows his eyebrow at the sight.

“It looks like the knife,” he says. “The one she took off the Hydra guy.” Steve nods, slipping into what looks like his thinking face.

Bruce furrows his eyebrows in thought too. “Did she take the arrow out?” he asks, concerned. He zooms in again, having a little more trouble getting the detail than with the knife. He sees tiny rod-like objects sticking out against the water and walkway background.

“I- I think she cut it?” he says. “Like, snipped off the ends or something.” He hands the tablet over to Bruce as he moves past him and into the kitchenette area. He sticks his head into the fridge and re-emerges with orange juice.

“I think she’s trying to not stand out,” Steve says. “Cutting the arrow down to an inconspicuous size? Think she might be heading somewhere to lay low?” He turns away from staring into space to look towards Tony. “No reports of arrow wounds at hospitals?” Tony shakes his head. “If she hasn’t gone to one by now, what are the chances that she will at all? Bruce,” he turns to said man, who is still examining the footage. “What’s the worst-case scenario? If she doesn’t get treated?”

Bruce considers the question. “I’d be most concerned about blood loss,” he answers. “If she takes it out. There’s a chance she cut off the ends because she wants to - to _pull it out.”_ Bruce mimes the movement as Steve nods and Tony pours himself a glass of juice.

“Have you been able to get facial recognition?” Steve asks.

“No decent angles,” Tony says. “Once this whole mess is over, I think I’ll replace all the security cameras in Manhattan.” He shakes his head. The elevator to their right opens and the spy duo step out into the common room - er, common _floor._ “The city has such garbage tech.” He sees the concerned look on Steve’s face. “I’ll find her, Capsicle.” Tony directs some of the rest of his words to Clint as the man grabs a glass. “You just need to give my tech some time.”

  
  
  


‘Some time.’

In Tony-speak, ‘some time’ has absolutely no meaning whatsoever. It just doesn’t.

‘Some time,’ _this time,_ turns out to be two more days.

Two days until their mystery woman is identified.

“Mystery _girl,”_ Tony corrects hesitantly as the profile pops up in front of them. Steve wants to slam his head into the table at the look on Clint’s face. “Annabeth Chase,” Tony reads. “Eighteen.” Someone has very clearly kicked Clint’s puppy.

  
  
  


Steve asks Clint if he wants to be the one to go and check if the girl - Annabeth - is okay. He says no. Steve accepts his answer with only one confirmation because, despite the fact that Clint’s expression seems to have settled, he’s worried that his teammate is three muscle movements away from going straight back to the kicked puppy look.

They - Tony and Natasha, that is - decide that Steve should be the one to go.

She lives on campus so they don’t have to go through the trouble of tracking down an address. An hour later, Steve is waiting only a few feet away from the eighteen-year-old’s current class, trying hard not to seem out of place. Tony assured him before he left that it would not work in a million years. There’s a reason the man’s a billionaire.

He had checked her dorm room earlier, to no avail. Her class, he is informed by Tony, will let out soon. All he has to do is wait for-

And they’re flowing out of the room. He scans the crowd, finding the face he’s looking for by what he assumes is sheer luck. She’s near the back of the crowd, heading towards the way he came - to the dorms. He jogs slightly to catch up.

“Miss Chase?” he says, and she glances towards him.

“Yes?” She doesn’t slow or stop, Steve falling into step beside her.

“I wanted to talk to you about three nights ago,” he says.

“Yes?” she repeats, unfazed. There’s a curious tone to the word, waiting for him to explain. It occurs to him that she doesn’t recognize him. He opens the door for her and she steps in with a brief “Thank you.”

He falls back into step beside her, turning to look at her face-to-face.

“Do you know who I am, Miss Chase?” She doesn’t pause, only taking a longer glance at him as she continues down the hallway.

“Seeing as you haven’t introduced yourself,” she says lightly, letting the rest of her sentence trail off. Just when he begins to doubt that they have the right person, he notices that her left arm is stiff, the hand in her pocket but her upper-arm unmoving as she walks, almost like… like it’s in a brace.

“My apologies,” he says, as they turn a corner. “I’m Steve Rogers.” She glances at him again, something different in her gaze. He notices that her eyes are grey, not blue like he had previously thought.

 _“My_ apologies, but that explains nothing,” she says, taking another turn. Steve furrows his eyebrows.

“Captain America,” he elaborates, keeping the tinge of confusion out of his voice. “As in _the Avengers.”_

“Ah,” she says in understanding, and something almost changes in her demeanour. “And you’d like to talk to me?”

“Yes,” he says. This conversation just keeps getting stranger. “About the incident that occurred three nights ago, in an alley by 34 Street-Penn Station.” She turns her head towards him expectantly and motions for him to continue. So he does. Why is this conversation so weird? “We wanted to make sure that you were all right.”

“I am.”

“Uh,” Steve says, somewhere between exasperated and confused. “You sustained a serious injury. And you haven’t visited a medical professional.” 

“I’m all right,” she says. She turns yet another hallway. “Is that all you wanted to talk to me about?” He thinks he understands what’s going on.

“If it’s the bill that you’re worried about, we’re more than happy to take care of it, regardless of if you have insurance. We’re very grateful,” he says. “It would be no bother to provide medical care.”

She turns again and he realizes that she’s not going to her dorm. The library doors sit in front of them. “No, thank you,” she says. He’s sure that he expresses his surprise visually.

“Miss Chase,” he starts, following her into the library.

“The library is for members only,” she says. She taps a card as she walks through the library foyer.

“All right-”

“Excuse me.” He pauses and turns towards the voice. A strict-looking, older woman who fits the profile of an old-timey librarian perfectly stands there. “You need to tap your access card.” She takes a hard look at him, peering over her glasses. “Are you a member?” He shakes his head. He notices that Chase has continued into the library, heading to the very back. The librarian doesn’t need to speak another word, her expression and the purposeful glance to the door speak louder.

Steve exits the library as directed. He’s mildly sure that he’s having some sort of mental breakdown. What just happened?

  
  
  


_“You got told off by a librarian?”_ Steve nearly applauds Tony for containing his laughter on the other side of the phone.

“I’m serious, Tony,” he says. “What am I supposed to do? She says she doesn’t want medical care.”

_“Maybe she’s… busy? I don’t know. Try again when she comes out.”_

“Thanks, Tony. Anyone else there have any actual advice?” The buck seems to stop with Natasha, as usual.

 _“Tell her we’re grateful. Tell her we’re sorry. We want to give her compensation and treatment because she helped us out in a tight spot,”_ Natasha says, baby-feeding him the words if her tone is anything to go on. _“Use your words, Steve, guilt trip her with your kicked American puppy eyes. Get her to get that shoulder looked at.”_ Easier said than done.

 _“Tell her that you’re very upset that a civilian got hurt in one of your operations,”_ she continues. _“And please, Steve, for the love of all that is true and holy-”_ he can almost see the smirk on her lips _“-stop letting librarians push you around. We have an image to maintain.”_ And with that beautiful pep-talk, they throw him once again to this strange eighteen-year-old’s mercy.

  
  
  


Steve gets nearly a third of the way through the audiobook of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban before Chase emerges from the library, having decided that he _will_ get this over with today.

Chase walks straight past him, either not noticing him or ignoring him. Once again, he falls into step with her.

“Miss Chase,” he says. “I would really insist that you go to a hospital, or our medical facilities.”

“Mr. Rogers, I’m afraid you may be confusing dedication with obsession. I’m refusing your offer of medical attention.” Getting out of the building from the library doesn’t take nearly as long as getting to the library did.

“May I ask why?”

“I hate rhetorical questions, Mr. Rogers.” She pushes the door open.

“And if it wasn't rhetorical?” 

“The answer would be no.”

“Good thing it was then,” he says, giving a smile. It doesn’t work. 

“Miss Chase, you got injured during one of _our_ operations. I feel responsible. Providing medical care and compensation for you is the least we can do. Regardless-” he steps out in front of her to get her to stop “-you _need_ medical attention. An arrow wound can be very dangerous if not treated properly.”

She steps around him and continues walking towards Broadway and West 114th.

“Mr. Rogers,” she starts.

“Steve.”

“Steve. My answer remains no. My patience, however, is decreasing at an increasing rate. It’s Friday; it’s late; I have places to be,” she says, crossing the street towards the subway station, and adding pointedly: “I doubt you took the subway.” He stops reluctantly in his tracks and just watches as she walks into the station.

  
  
  


Steve sighs, leaning back on the couch. “Is she at Columbia for Law School?” Tony seems taken aback by the question.

“She’s studying architecture,” Natasha puts in hesitantly.

“She talks like a lawyer.”

“Aw,” Tony drawls. “Did the mean eighteen-year-old hurt your feelings, Stevie-Weevie?” He puts his hand on his cheeks in a mocking way. “Did she use a bad word?”

“Is she okay?” Natasha asks, reminding Steve of the reason he wasted nearly half of the daylight today.

“She didn’t look like she was losing blood,” he says. “But beyond that I have no idea. She refused to go to a doctor point-blank multiple times.”

“Try again,” Natasha says simply. Steve sighs.

“Fine,” he says. “But this time I’m taking back-up.” There’s a beat before Tony puts in, laughing:

“‘Decreasing at an increasing rate?’ Who _says_ that?”

  
  
  


Unlike last time, there is no swarm of people exiting Chase’s current class. Instead, as he hears the shuffle of chairs that indicates the class is over, only Chase walks out of the room. Steve and Bruce are hard to miss, standing directly outside, separated from the door by only a dozen feet. Regardless, Chase walks directly past them both, her pace not fast, but determined, just like it had been last time.

Steve holds back a sigh and gestures for Bruce to copy him in jogging to catch up to her. “Miss Chase,” he says. “This is Dr. Bruce Banner.” She spares them a glance as she takes a left, heading for the stairs as far as Steve can tell.

“Hi,” Bruce offers.

“Hi, Dr. Banner.” She pushes the door open, moving into the stairwell.

“Bruce would like to check that your arm is healing okay.”

“No.”

“Miss Ch-”

“Regardless, if my memory serves me right,” she says, the tilt of her head indicating that she’s speaking to Bruce now. “- and this isn’t to say that you aren’t otherwise incredibly qualified - you aren’t a licenced physician.” They reach the second floor, where Chase heads towards the door.

“Miss Chase.” She stops at the door and turns to face him.

“No,” she puts in firmly. A beat, before she turns towards Bruce, a hand on the crash bar of the door behind her. “The Pupin Physics Hall is undergoing renovations and the physics students have spilled in here - which means you’ll probably be recognized if you go this way.” She nods towards the door.

“Thanks,” Bruce says. She nods as she turns, pushing the door open. She makes it through but seems to have a change of mind, turning back towards them, holding the door open with her leg. Steve thanks his lucky stars that she’s finally being reasonable ab-

“Though, they’re also scrambling because exams start on Friday.” Bruce makes a sympathetic face. “So I don’t think anyone would mind if you wanted to drop in and revisit your teaching days.” She turns and continues on her way, leaving the door to shut in their faces.

  
  
  


The next time Chase catches sight of Steve, the look on her face very clearly seems to say: _God is testing me and I prefer take-home assignments._

Regardless, she walks over to the booth that Steve and Natasha are in.

“Hi, I’m Annabeth and I’ll be your waitress today,” she says. Steve can tell that she doesn’t believe they’re here for the food for a second. He doesn’t bother with a lie. “What can I get you?”

It had only taken a few minutes to find out that Chase has three part-time jobs. A couple more to find out which one she was working at today before Natasha and Steve were on their way to the diner.

“Miss Chase, all we’re asking is that you have a doctor check you out to make sure that you’re okay,” Steve tries.

“That’s not on the menu,” she says. Steve opens his mouth to respond but Natasha cuts him off.

“Did it hit the bone?” she asks nonchalantly. Chase seems to consider her for a moment.

“No.”

“Did it hit any important vessels?”

“No.”

“Was it disinfected?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’ll have one cheeseburger-”

“Natasha,” Steve admonishes.

“Sorry, _two_ cheeseburger combos, Coca-Cola for both, but hold the pickles for one of them. And… onion rings instead of fries,” she orders. Chase nods, her face remaining neutral through the entire exchange, and makes note of the order.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes with your food.”

“Natasha,” he says again, once Chase has left their side of the diner.

“She said no, Steve. Three times.” she wiggles three fingers to drive the point home. “Just leave it alone and enjoy your food.”

Steve reluctantly obeys and refrains from bringing up the point of their visit again. They eat their food once it arrives and Natasha orders four extra large plates of fries to-go afterwards. The smell of diner fries follows them back to the tower and up to the common room, where they arrive just in time for Tony to fill them in on their next op.

**Author's Note:**

> So,,, if this, for some reason, ends up turning into something more than a one-shot, the tentative series title is 'new friends and old wounds' because I was trying to come up with a title (for a *while*) for this but kept getting distracted by *thoughts* about things that theoretically come after it, and subsequently fell in love with that title. I make no promises *at all* (even if my own heart yearns for a continuation) and this work is officially a one-shot.
> 
> In a rare instance of actual brain function, I've remembered that I first had the idea for this fic while I was reading [this](https://archiveofourown.org/series/284166) \- the first work, to be specific. I haven't read all of them because I'm a mess and I don't have enough brain cells to do so at the moment but I really liked the parts of it that I have read!
> 
> (I was editing and thinking about some of the scenes here and just. the mental image of Annabeth in a black leather jacket hit me in the face and murdered me, so. Picture that in the opening, okay?)
> 
> SO. I hope you enjoyed and that you'll hit me up with some thoughts in the comments? :)
> 
> P.S., you can find me on tumblr at [@randomest-username](https://randomest-username.tumblr.com/) if you so choose. :))


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